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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

There is a tradition of making wedding cakes that look like tree stumps. Why? Beats me. And since many of them have little shotgun shells decoratively sprinkled around the edges, I'll let one of you ask.

Here's an example of a stump wedding cake, and also what bride Zsofia asked her baker to make for her wedding:

As you can see, it is remarkably stumpy. Now, again, you may be questioning the reasoning behind celebrating a new life of love together with a murdered tree. To this I say: It's not like it's a real tree, so let it go already. Besides, that's not the point.

So what IS the point?

The point, my dear Wreckies, is that Zsofia got THIS for her wedding cake:

See? Betcha don't give a poo-streaked muck pile why people order stump cakes now. Now you just want a better view of this poo-streaked muck pile.

Happy to oblige, my friends, happy to oblige:

This is a wedding cake, people. A weddingcake. For somebody'swedding. Which people were expected to eat. With their mouths.

Now don't get me wrong: the green shredded coconut adds a festive touch to those 15 cent cardboard rounds, and the fake bird is totally workin' it. Still, the bride suspects (and from this photo, I think with good reason) that the cake may have fallen over a few times en route, since in addition to looking - well, like this - it was an hour late to the reception.

Happily, though, Zsofia reports that by the time the cake arrived most of the guests were too drunk to care what the cake looked like, anyway.

jen you crack me up. so...my husband retired from the air force yesterday...21 years. i'm sitting here thinking...darn..dang...why didn't i take a picture of that cake? cuz girl...that tennis racket was something to behold. anywho...have you done military retiree wreckages? (of which I sent the booster club president a photo of the nasa cake wreckage -- cuz my hubby worked on some of their stuff...and said..hey...i was thinking...lol..) thanks again jen for the laughs. lauren

To me, it looked like the bride had to stack her own cake! It just totally amazes me, what some people expect money for, and it is beyond amazing that some people PAY that money. *shakes head* You'd think it would be easier to get my own business up and running, since I actually CARE what my cakes look like. Sheesh.

Zsofia, You are a real trooper to have taken this catastrophe so well! I just have such a hard time seeing wedding cakes go so horribly wrong. I'm a cake decorator myself and have nightmares of things going wrong when it comes to weddings. I just can't believe anyone would accept a cake order without knowing that they were capable of accomplishing the right end result!!! Your reputation is on the line! This cake should never have happened.

Just in case you were still wondering, the stumps are a German tradition. The bride and groom are supposed to saw a log together at the wedding--a symbol of all the work they'll do together. But we're lazy now. We don't want to cut down trees and saw logs. So we make WRECKTASTIC cakes out of them.

OMFG that's horrible!!! But I do love the wedding cake posts "this is what she asked for" / "this is what she GOT". Luckily the person who made my cake at my wedding 5.5 weeks ago is a Cake Wrecks reader ;)

Sorry, both the "good" example and the outcome are hideous. Of course, the latter monstrosity is way more awful, but seriously: a white rotund blob (last I looked, tree stumps didn't taper at the end) with THICK black lines that are only slightly reminscent of tree bark.Nah, I'm not impressed...

Well... Wood is supposed to be the symbol for a ten year anniversary, like gold for the 50th, and garnet for the 70th... maybe they dated for ten years. ...and all you people saying that details get lost in translation from fondant to butter cream frosting. This may be true, however, nobody should ever get that lost.

I realize that this is going out on a limb (ta da da!), but there is a (slim) possibility that the stump cake was requested by a couple of Francophiles who were particularly obsessed with the film "Tell No One." In which case, I would have liked to have gone to that wedding...

umm is it normal to have cardboard between levels 1 and 2?i mean.. ive baked a wreck or two in my day.. some of which may have tasted like cardboard, but even then, i didnt actually include cardboard in the recipe.

also. the butterflies are a nice touch.. though i think the insect they were looking for was a poofly.

I was the baker of the top tree stump cake. I was a little shocked and surprised to find one of my cakes on this web site (which I have been browsing for hours and laughing my *ss of at).

This was one of my first wedding cakes. I believe the bride was from Zimbabwe. But I can't remember. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with her choice in cakes or not.

I'm not sure whether to feel honored or miffed here. You can bet that each handmade mushroom and butterfly and hand painted flower took some serious time. Much more time than I charged for (seeing as how I was a novice).

However, since I have forsaken the wedding cake business for the higher calling of wife and mother, I'll just let it slide.

Sure it's your cake but it's the example of the GOOD one. We had to have the inspiration for the beauty that followed. Just cause it's here doesn't mean it's a wreck. And believe me, I know how hard the flowers are.